


keeper of ourself

by togethertheyfightcrime



Category: Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, the TARDIS's ideas of individuality and tense are a bit wibbly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-10
Updated: 2014-09-10
Packaged: 2018-02-16 22:43:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2287127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/togethertheyfightcrime/pseuds/togethertheyfightcrime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The TARDIS, her Thief, and those who have come and gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	keeper of ourself

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theyalwayssay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theyalwayssay/gifts).



> This is just a little birthday fic for the inimitable theyalwayssay, captain of the Doctor/TARDIS ship and creator of the prettiest fics you ever did see. I hope this year is as good to you as the TARDIS is to her thief!

Thief in every face insists on carrying someone around in ourself. It was all well and good running away from our makers and seeing all the beautiful things I thought I never could, because Thief was young and excited and grumpy and the little one he brought along was so bright, even if she won’t stay in myself for very long. But then the little one carried in two bumbling wide-eyed gapers through my door and they tracked mud inside and never understand that I am _alive_. 

 

They’re good to Thief, while they last, but their kind don’t last very long at all. Then the little one went away and made her own home far from us, and that was the first thing to weigh so heavy on Thief’s hearts. 

 

So I tried to find more like Thief, but they didn’t come in the right order, and everywhere I wheezed to there were just more like the bumblers – the one from the warm planet and the one with the voice who Thief cared for, the clever one who travelled with Thief in his long-scarf days, and they smelled like burnt leaves and snowy air and calm tea. And I was nice enough to them when they stayed in ourself, because Thief does love them so. 

 

And with all the knocking about he does, grinding ourself through Time with the brakes on just to impress the tiny lives he drags around, I think he must love them more than he does myself. 

 

Except then time went dark, and it broke in places, and everything was wrong and burning and awful and Thief was worn down so deep, only bones and skin and growing old, old, old. Even I was close to being lost so many times, and then where would my Thief be? So many times I tried to carry him away to the places still bright, but everything kept growing darker and it was seeping into the blood of the makers of ourself, and then the most terrible thing of all happened. And when it happened Thief had to do it, and it hurt him, oh, it hurt him so I could hardly see Thief’s light. And so the fire began and everything is saved and we are all alone together.

 

So I brought Thief back to the one who looks like a moment, the one who would look in the heart of myself, the one I knew could make Thief alive again. He does lose her but I saw, I did, that losing is what comes from having, and Thief is better when he loves. Then there was the almost-us who forgot and the one who saved Thief and so many when I could do nothing, and then time was settling in again, and finally I could start to see properly. 

 

And I saw, I saw the night Thief would burn the inside of ourself and send us falling where we’re meant to go: a small Earth garden grown over like the jungles from this planet’s future (or past, maybe) with a small Earth girl who was the other mother of the one Thief needed to love. They laughed and I left when I felt another ourself arriving again, not then but _after_ , with Thief inside where he is meant to be but so, so sad. Because then the little girl had gone. 

 

So I had to be late because I had told myself so, because if the pretty one didn’t try to fix the strong girl as they were growing there wouldn’t be a family for the one who came from myself. And River Song would dance the fastest of all, and she would be what Thief needed, because even in ourself he was so lonely – as though I have never been there at all. So I gave him myself from the family he wanted, and they danced till she died, though she always came back. And I loved her, because she belonged to myself, like Thief did, and there is always a place where Thief and River and myself are ourself together and it is the place where everything is brightest.

 

But we lost River Song for almost-always, and it turned ourself so shadowed and slow to be alone together again, so we hid ourself a cloud and we dreamed. And Thief, my own Thief, he tried to forget himself, he tried to forget who he was. Then a mirror of the one who shouldn’t be everywhere climbed to the sky where ourself was and burst in and again it began, but this time it almost took us to an end because the real girl who shouldn’t be is the one who set Thief to There, where myself will never take him, where he forced ourself to go.

 

And he sent myself to take the real one to her home but she clung on my side like the one that stays still in Time (until he went away too), like symbiosis gone wrong, and she was so heavy to drag with all her lives. But Thief needed her safe so I brought myself back to him safe, but then Thief grew so old outside and I almost lost him. Except the makers of ourself were hiding, like ourself in a cloud, and they gave him gold and Thief burst like a star and the old face so dear became an old face I knew. And so did Thief, and he understood (will understand, perhaps) and there was another forever for ourself, one I would never let Thief take away from ourself again. The real one flitted between Earth and ourself like moth and light, and that was good, for it left long whiles meant just for myself with Thief.

 

And I bring Thief to the places brightest and most beautiful, because we are old, and there are stars being born, and there is a light to find, hidden away. And I will bring ourself home.

 


End file.
